WALL STREET
dir: Oliver Stone
"I don't throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought." - Gordon Gekko
Brief Synopsis
Upon learning that certain significant members of the Nazi leadership are attending a film premiere, a group of Jewish Allied soldiers known as "the Basterds" plan a surprise attack. Meanwhile, a Jewish woman whose family has been murdered by the Nazi's has her own plan for revenge at the premiere.
Why It's Here
Unlike period pictures of decades long since past, Wall Street has the somewhat unfortuante luck of being a cultural artifact, rather than throwback. Where films set in the early century have the ability to glamourize the simplicity and nostalgia of the time, while sweeping the primitive technologies under the rug, Wall Street instead relies on these dated features to sustain it's world and build a narrative. It's not difficult to understand how some people find it difficult to watch by today's standards, with Charlie Sheen's computer communicating a birthday by representing a calender with blocky pixels and a birthday theme song composed of no more than 5 notes. Or better yet the mobile phone that looks like a tumor off the side of Michael Douglas's face as he homoerotically narrates the beauty of a beach horizon. As Wall Street has become a face for 80's excess, these technologies represent part of that short-sighted glory, an era built as a prototype for what was to come, but at the time seen as the be-all end-all of business and technology. It's an eerie retrospective that is a forewarning to how topical films of this generation will look like fossils in a mere decade as well.
While the story follows Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox as he tries to rise in the ranks of Wall Street, the movies real motivator is Michael Douglas's appropriately Oscar-winning Gordon Gekko. Gordon's office of solitude makes him a difficult man to reach if your not an equally ruthless business mongol. When Bud finally succeeds in cracking through the exterior, he finds himself a mentor in a man he idolizes as a savvy entrepenuer and savior of the clueless working class, or to a further extent, the financially flawed United States of America. Gekko is a fox in sheep's wool who promises companies his support in reinventing their functions, but inevitably liquidates them. We really get to see the extent of the greed and power when Gekko and a vicious competitor exchange low-blows by arguing about how many thousands of employees each other have laid off. The people below are literally pawns, easily disposable, while these giants who hide behind a curtain call the shots from high-rises. Gekko reminds Bud that sheep are never successful, you have to be cunning and able to sniff out a scoop, or you'll just be part of the herd.
Bud's biggest blunder is acknowledging Gekko's words as gospel, telling his partners that there is absolutely no way they can get hurt. Bud signs away his life when Gekko's attorney presents him with documents that state if, in an "unlikely" case, their insider trading or any other illegal venture, is discovered, Gekko is in no way affiliated. Bud signs the paper, oblivious that he is acting as just another footsoldier, willing to put his life on the line for a man who radiant charisma gets him anything and everything.
Bud comes to the natural third act realization of his wrongdoings, and with the help of his working-class representative father, set the record straight. However, Bud slides so far, he realizes that there are no clean brakes, and the film appropriately ends with the "kings" resorting to desperate fisticuffs in Central Park. The transformation is complete, Bud has come full circle while Gekko has degenerated into a weak, powerless man.
he film was released as the 80's drew to a close, and in that way, the film is a collection of the entire decade wrapped in a two hour package. Gekko mentions how computers and technology are the future, they changed everything for the business world, but their simple calculating abilities would be eclipsed by faster processors, newer operating systems, and malicious viruses. The country, and the people running it, looked only to the present as a source of success, without looking past their next step. Wall Street works because it's universally relevant. The technology ages but the human side of the story applies to the dot-com bubble, the 2008 stock market crash, and inevitably a slew of market hiccups to come. Wall Street is a movie about sin, it depicts the aged styles and trends of the 80's as present, with no certainty of what's to come, which is sort of endearing because it is a film about forward thinking (or lack of) but it is actually in the dark itself. It depicts the short-term mentality of the era, and the short-term concequences, but it has no control or idea of what the long term would be. I suppose that's where the 2010 sequel comes into play.
While the story follows Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox as he tries to rise in the ranks of Wall Street, the movies real motivator is Michael Douglas's appropriately Oscar-winning Gordon Gekko. Gordon's office of solitude makes him a difficult man to reach if your not an equally ruthless business mongol. When Bud finally succeeds in cracking through the exterior, he finds himself a mentor in a man he idolizes as a savvy entrepenuer and savior of the clueless working class, or to a further extent, the financially flawed United States of America. Gekko is a fox in sheep's wool who promises companies his support in reinventing their functions, but inevitably liquidates them. We really get to see the extent of the greed and power when Gekko and a vicious competitor exchange low-blows by arguing about how many thousands of employees each other have laid off. The people below are literally pawns, easily disposable, while these giants who hide behind a curtain call the shots from high-rises. Gekko reminds Bud that sheep are never successful, you have to be cunning and able to sniff out a scoop, or you'll just be part of the herd.
Bud's biggest blunder is acknowledging Gekko's words as gospel, telling his partners that there is absolutely no way they can get hurt. Bud signs away his life when Gekko's attorney presents him with documents that state if, in an "unlikely" case, their insider trading or any other illegal venture, is discovered, Gekko is in no way affiliated. Bud signs the paper, oblivious that he is acting as just another footsoldier, willing to put his life on the line for a man who radiant charisma gets him anything and everything.
Bud comes to the natural third act realization of his wrongdoings, and with the help of his working-class representative father, set the record straight. However, Bud slides so far, he realizes that there are no clean brakes, and the film appropriately ends with the "kings" resorting to desperate fisticuffs in Central Park. The transformation is complete, Bud has come full circle while Gekko has degenerated into a weak, powerless man.
he film was released as the 80's drew to a close, and in that way, the film is a collection of the entire decade wrapped in a two hour package. Gekko mentions how computers and technology are the future, they changed everything for the business world, but their simple calculating abilities would be eclipsed by faster processors, newer operating systems, and malicious viruses. The country, and the people running it, looked only to the present as a source of success, without looking past their next step. Wall Street works because it's universally relevant. The technology ages but the human side of the story applies to the dot-com bubble, the 2008 stock market crash, and inevitably a slew of market hiccups to come. Wall Street is a movie about sin, it depicts the aged styles and trends of the 80's as present, with no certainty of what's to come, which is sort of endearing because it is a film about forward thinking (or lack of) but it is actually in the dark itself. It depicts the short-term mentality of the era, and the short-term concequences, but it has no control or idea of what the long term would be. I suppose that's where the 2010 sequel comes into play.